Second Best
by SwayPippin
Summary: ONESHOT: Severus thinks he knows why she's come to him again. He's tired of always being second, but what if he's wrong? What if she has, this time, come for all of the right reasons? HgSs


Second Best

What hurt him the most was always being second best. Second best, behind someone he loathed. That damned red haired, mindless, unworthy, excuse for a husband. If he was so wonderful why was it that she stepped out on him? Why did she need to go to someone so much older than her husband, older than her, to find satisfaction? Still, the fact that he was second when he should have been first was too much for him at times.

As always, her small hand rapped on the decaying wooden door. He knew she would come. She always did.

"Enter!" He called from his seat on his moth eaten sofa.

He didn't look over his shoulder as the door creaked open. He didn't watch her figure approach him. He didn't even return the kiss she placed on his cheek as she stood behind him. He already knew what she was doing. He could smell the sickening stench of _him_ all over her. Wordlessly he stood and turned to face her. And there she was. Her petite frame shivered as his black eyes scanned hers. She knew he knew.

"Why have you come here?" His voice was as cold as ever.

She drew in a deep breath, trying to hide the fact that she was terrified of him since he had turned to face her. "I wanted to see you."

He scoffed, "you wanted to see me? Why?" He knew why, he just wanted to hear her say it, though he knew she wouldn't.

Her eyes wandered for a moment, trying to avoid him, until she saw him moving toward her. She hadn't spoken until he was standing only inches from her, finding herself unable to do so until that moment. "Because I need you."

A smirk etched its way across his face. It amazed him that even though she knew that he knew there was a different reason for her visit; she continued to lie to him. After the five years they'd been masquerading around each other, he thought she would be able to see the distrust in his eyes. It was odd to him how easily he could read her, but he'd always been one for observing. What was more was that she couldn't read him at all, not even after so many years. His face was still as foreign to her as sound to a def man. Perhaps, he thought, if he'd tried harder, been nicer, told her all of those little things that seemed to matter so much, she wouldn't be there right at that moment, for those reasons.

"Do not lie to me, girl." He scolded, reaching out his right hand to cup her milky while cheek.

She nuzzled her face in his palm and closed her eyes. Even thought his skin never held warmth well, his touch set her on fire, every time. "Please…"

What was she asking for? Oh he knew all too well. But this time, he couldn't give her what she wanted, he couldn't say what she wanted to hear, he couldn't do this because she wouldn't do it for him. She would never tell him those words he so longed to hear, she wouldn't promise to keep him safe from the world, to hold him as he cried, to kiss away his tears. She wouldn't do any of these things for him as he had for her so many times.

Still, he knew he would give in. He knew she would win like she had done so many times over. A weakness, as he saw it, that's what she caused in him. She was the only person who had ever had such an effect on him. The only woman he'd ever cared to touch, or hold. The only one he ever wanted to wake up next to. The one woman he loved too much, the one that didn't love him.

A long sigh escaped his lips as he gazed down at the eye lids he cursed for stealing away those brown orbs. "I will not."

Her eyes snapped open and immediately focused on his, "Please, Severus, just tell me. Just tell me you love me. Make everything alright again."

He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, attempting to fight back those words. Trying to keep them under lock and key, he wasn't going to be her play thing any longer. "No."

Her face softened while she watched him struggle for words, struggle to lie to her; tell her he wasn't going to do what she already knew he would. Standing on tip toe, she leaned forward and placed a lingering kiss from his neck, up his jaw line, and ended it on his mouth. Her tongue traced his lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck and wound her fingers tightly in his hair. He couldn't resist her. Couldn't resist the game he knew she was playing. Always a pawn, always the one she used, always too willing to participate. His sacrifice for only a few moments of her time, a few moments that he felt needed, wanted.

Breaking her kiss only for a second, she whispered, "Say it."

His body was too eager, hungered for her far too much for him to resist any longer. "Hermione, I love you."

The events of the night unfolded like he knew they would. He told her what she wanted to hear, she gave him what he wished meant something to her. She showed him how love was made, like she had done on countless other occasions, and then she dressed.

She flashed him a coy smile and he knew all too well what she was going to say. Still, he lay in his bed, covered only by the dingy sheets. Though his world was about to end, again, as it had on countless nights such as this, he was not going to give her the satisfaction of making him get out of his bed. The same bed he always had her in.

"Severus, I think we need to talk." Her words quiet as she hung her head.

"Say it, Hermione. Tell me you are leaving me again. Tell me how much you love the man who does not deserve you. Tell me how wrong it is for you to be here and that you shouldn't have come." His voice did not crack this time, it did not falter as he glowered in her direction. He wasn't going to give in, wasn't going to cry. He refused to yell and scream at her. None of these dismal things would mean anything to her in the end, they never did.

She laughed. _She laughed_. Did she think it funny that he knew what she was going to say, that he was already too numb to show her how much he cared? Was it a game to her? This wasn't the reaction he was expecting. He expected her to be hurt, to try and deny the things he knew were true. But she laughed, and it enraged him.

He abruptly leapt from his bed and stood in front of her. Grabbing her face in his hands he forced her to look at him. "You think it's funny? Is it humorous to you to watch me break? Do you enjoy my pain? Is that why you come here?"

Again all she did was laugh.

His anger bubbled to the surface as he began to yell at her. "How is this funny? Stop laughing! Tell me you're leaving me and be gone. Be out of my life forever. I will not take you back, not this time. I've had my fill of these childish games and I will not tolerate them any longer. Tell me what you've come here to say and leave me be!"

Her laugher only subsided when his yelling had stopped. She stared up into his hard black eyes, blinking only when she had too. "Severus, I do not think it funny to hurt you. I do not think this a game. I do not find pleasure in your pain nor do I want to play games. You are correct in the assumption that I have come here to tell you something. But your assumption of what that thing is is far from the truth. If you wish me gone, I will oblige, I never meant to cause you such pain."

Suddenly he felt a bit like a prat. He hadn't given her the chance to say anything, only taken his past experiences to heart. He expected her to leave, wished she'd stop playing these games for which he was too old. His heavy heart couldn't take much more of this girl, and he knew this was so. Every time she left, a piece of him died, and eventually there wasn't going to be anything more to him than an empty shell. He didn't want to hear her words, couldn't bear to see her face, but he had to know. Had to know why she'd come there, why she had laughed.

"In six words or less, Hermione, tell me why you've come here." He snapped.

She gave a sigh, a slight laugh, then there was nothing. For several minutes she simply stood there, admiring his naked body, devouring every inch of him. She tried to process what she was going to say, tried to think of a way to make it come out. Nothing she could think of was going to lessen the blow.

Clearing her throat she spoke, annunciating every word, "I. Am. Carrying. Your. Child. Asshole."

His hard, cold, black eyes softened as her words washed over him like the tide. His crooked lips twitched but wouldn't move. His heart felt as if it might explode, and his breath was lost. She hadn't come there to leave him after all. She was his, and he knew it. He'd won the game, he was the better man. His seed was growing in the womb of another man's wife. He'd gotten his final revenge on that damned Ron Weasley. He would never again be second best.

* * *

A/N: This was a necessary deviation from my norm, if I do say so myself. Well, the norm for my OneShots. Please do let me know what you think. Sway 


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